Attribution Doesn’t Make it Right

Taking another person’s image or graphic and giving them a shoutout, linkback, or any other type of attribution does not negate copyright infringement.

Common sense may say that an artist wants exposure for their work, but we’re talking about the law here and common sense doesn’t always parallel.

Copyright law gives the copyright holder the right to decide where their work is published and maybe they don’t want their work on your site, in your book, included in your newsletter or distributed to your social media network. It’s not for us to question why they wouldn’t want exposure.

Their Image, Their Rules

I thought I did everything right when creating this SlideShare deck: found Creative Commons-licensed photos and gave appropriate attribution.

Yet I still got a comment from one of the image owners:

Mind you, Creative Commons licensing doesn’t require me to include attribution ON the image itself, but in the end, it’s his photo, his rules.

BOTTOM LINE

When using photos, pictures, images in your blog posts, learn about their licensing requirements, copyrights, and applicable royalties. PLUS be ready to fix things if and when trouble comes – even if you think you’ve done everything right.

Even if you find an image without an explicit copyright notice, it absolutely does NOT mean that it’s ‘public domain‘ and, therefore, free to use.

The same act applies to any work YOU produce, including your website content. So, if anyone should reprint your work without your permission, you have every right to make their lives difficult. If it’s worth it to you, that is. 🤔😉

Still don’t think it’s that big of a deal?

Let’s hope these real-life cases scare you straight:

This agency got sued $8,000 for using a copyrighted image in a blog post that got less than 100 visitors. They called it their “most costly mistake since starting the business”.

Likewise, this agency got sued $4,000 for, once again, using a copyrighted image that would have originally cost $10.

This company was republishing newspaper content under a CC licence for others to use. However they didn’t have a licence from the original creators of the content to do that, so they got sued.

Persephone Magazine used an image with a Creative Commons licence and was later sued for $1,500 for using it. It turned out the photo did not belong to the person who uploaded it with a CC licence, which led to 73 companies that used it being sued.

GoodReads faced one of the biggest copyright cases ever, when they were sued $150,000 for an image of a boy band member, uploaded by a fan.

When in doubt, use Reverse Image Lookup

Not sure whether the image in question is free of copyright shackles? Try to track down the original source by going a reverse image search.

TinEye.com is the best free tool for the job – simply enter the image URL and TinEye search results will return all instances of that particular image found online.

The best 10 2 sites to find the best free blog post images

Let me start with a quick disclaimer: there used to be 10 royalty and copyright free image aggregators listed below.

What happened?

Two things:

1. TRUST

I no longer trust a few photo sites to do what they claimed to do – provide us, website owners looking to legally use images for the content we create, with exactly that – images we could, with all confidence, use in our content.

Take, for instance, Compfight.com, a site that aggregates Creative Commons images from Flickr.

Here’s what you might see when searching for an image at Compfight.

That’s an ad from DepositPhotos.com (one of the two sites I actually happen to love and recommend.)

“All rights reserved” link leads to a Yahoo! Help page (no longer in service, thus no link) that walks you through setting up a Flickr account (no explanation of what “All rights reserved” actually means.) And by “All rights reserved”, by the way, Flickr means you MAY NOT use this image in any way, shape, or form… duh! YET…

Apparently, as long as you give attribution (a link) to the image owner AND Compfight, you can use the image however you please… (NOT!!!)

A link to buy images from Shutterstock.

I CRINGE when thinking how many a content creator might’ve been mislead by this gross misrepresentation of Creative Commons licence… that could lead YOU, the content creator (NOT Compfight!), to a legal battle with image creators.

And, believe you me, Compfight is FAR from being the only image aggregator website carelessly encouraging you to do something that’s a legal (and common sense!) no-no.

2. LESS IS MORE

The other day, I was working on a new Lesson for my Content Boomerang Students.

After all, you work hard to create that content, to begin with… doesn’t it make sense to milk it for all it’s worth instead of letting it sink into the bowels of your archives?…. Click here if you agree.

Here’s exactly what I wrote in that Lesson:

I could easily named a few dozen websites you could get your images from.

However, it would be completely counterproductive. The last thing you need is to go down the rabbit hole of looking for that one ‘perfect’ image.

Here are the two websites you’ll EVER NEED to find the right image for any occasion.

That got me thinking…

Why am I telling my Students EXACTLY where I find the perfect images for my blog posts as well as countless content repurposing projects, yet giving you, my Reader, a lot more than you actually need to get the job done?…

Thus, gone is the list of one-too-many ‘free’ image aggregators.

Here are the only two free image sites you’ll ever need.

Pixabay.com

Pixabay.com offers truly FREE images – free to use AND free to acquire (meaning you don’t have to pay to download an image.)

A few Pixabay ‘good-to-do’s’:

1. Create a free Pixabay account
Registering is free and, once a member, you’ll be able to follow photographers you like, as well as save your favorite images.

2. Narrow down your search
Pixabay offers a choice of photos, vectors, illustrations, and videos. You can also narrow down your search by a few other parameters; category and color might be the most helpful.

3. Use Editor’s Choice images for inspiration
If you have no clue what kind of image you should be looking for (happens!), check out the Editor’s Choice section. That’s the best place to start looking for that emotional connection you need to establish with your Reader.

Hi Ana, I like two things about your article: 1) how comprehensive it is, 2) you left just 2 sites in the end 🙂 True, it’s more than enough nowadays. I also like specialized resources, like Old New Stock or Startup Stock, or this app https://photos.icons8.com/creator for making your own photos out of stock ones.

I am so happy you didn’t mention Unsplash, which is in most cases illegal and might mean being sued. I am also glad you are not opposed to actually pay for images, however little. Though I don’t thin there is anything wrong with mentioning the image author, ever.

Ana, Pixabay user here, great to read to your story of how you have reached to these 2 sites that you have suggested in this article.

Pixabay and Canva are two major tools for me for almost all my blogging needs. Although I do take photos myself for my reviews etc. I am now looking for a tool to compress the images but sits in WP plugins (without resource hog), still haven’t found one yet.

Thanks for sharing this valuable content. Any online marketer or blog owner needs beautiful eye catching images to make their content stand out.

I used to buy my images through stock photo sites like fotolia or depositphotos.com because I wanted to make sure that my images were safe to use without violating any copyright infringement.

But then I found pixabay and now that’s where I get most of my images from. The only problem with pixabay is that sometimes it can take ages to find the correct images. But it’s a free source so there’s nothing to complain about.

I really appreciate all the great intel you’ve given me – it is really helping me build my new blog! One question I’m still stumped on with images: what does “building on” an image really mean? I’d like to do some images with text overlays with quotes, information for slides, etc. and I’m confused on whether this is “altering” the image or not. Can you give me a specific guideline for the rules regarding adding text to images? Thanks so much! BTW – your blog has found a home in several of my bookmarks – great job here!

Yes, adding anything to an image – text, etc. – counts as altering it. You can alter images if the specific license allows you to do so. That applies to most Creative Commons images.

I wish I could be more specific, but you have to look at it on a case by case basis. Most sites that allow you to reuse images (like the ones I mentioned in the post) publish the type of license the images are published under – that should give you an idea if you can alter them or not.

Hi Ana,
I love finding just the right image for my post or header. I use Google Images, morgue file, pixabay, iconfinder but, I didn’t realize that Bing is now letting us use images. YAAY!! I also, didn’t know about a couple of the others you mention.

I’m exhausted. Well done Ana. Yes I read it all. Come on MGM, get a grip. Way too many lawyers. Really, do they have anything better to do than make noise on a SS presentation that was very well done. Please.

With Pinterest and Google it’s open season, with every individual it’s Harvard Law. Typical.

Attribution. Absolutely. Whenever I pull something 500px, they get the embedded attribution and the photographer gets link to his/her site of FB page.

This will likely be a losing battle for “photographers” as the web continues to grow and the popularity of images. Articles and images are shared all over the place by major sites, let alone individual blogs. If you link back to my post, more power to you and 99% time, thank you. Photographers and Artists would be better off to have the same mindset.

I have been using Photopin for some time, and whilst it proves to be a great source, sometimes limiting for my needs. I hadn’t come across the others you have mentioned above, despite frequently Googling to try to find more.

So this list you provided has opened up a whole new world of pictures! I do try to use my own pics, but as many of mine feature my family (and I choose not to have them on my blog), sometimes, it can be tricky to get the imagery needed!

Using an image with a copyright license can land one into problem. I have heard cases of bloggers sued for infringing on such rights and ended up spending so much. I usually create most of the images i use or search for images without copyright on Google to use.

I will also check out the other sites you listed here for free images i could use for my blog. Thanks for sharing.

Another master piece from you Ana!
I usually use Google images for finding images that i use in my blog post and it seems the easiest method to me, I get to choose from a variety of images and also from different styles and formats like Clip arts, icon, logo and so on.
Thanks for mentions my Image SEO guide, it is really appreciated…
Been away for a while now, but am fully back now 😉

There is a lot of information on the Internet but you explained this topic particularly well. I like to buy images though because if you link to someone’s image you can’t be sure the link will be valid in the future.

Spot on post as usual, truly like your combo of information density with a juicy writing style!

Now I do have a question about the Flickr creative commons. How does it work with all this license stuff? I see you use pictures with “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License” (oh these lovely names they picked, great!).

To me we are moving to the grey zone now…. Would you be able to defend that your slideshares are “non-commercial”? I mean, off course they are giving people free information about how to get traffic. But they are also driving people to your website, which in turn is meant to generate business.

What do you think? This “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License” is certainly the biggest pool to fish in (with 75 million images) and you do have a knack of finding the funniest en most appealing ones!
(your SEO on page cheat sheet slideshare: guy with lightbulb in his mouth, or with an electrical chord coming out of his nose… must have taken you some serious image hunting to find them!)

The image creator might change the license in the future. Or someone might’ve posted a picture under Creative Commons that wasn’t theirs to post to begin with.

You just never know. Thus, the best you can do is do your due diligence and follow “the rules” as you understand them. If you ever have to take down an image due to a complaint, then you’ll cross that bridge when you get to it.

I have some suggestions on how to edit your picture.. just download on your google chrome the pixlr express. there you can edit free. with good quality. and to your blog, it is a nice peice of you, thank you

You have thrown in some very helpful resources, and also put forth some interesting points on how we should approach finding free images for our blogs or websites.

There are plenty of sites that offer free images as well as other content, and as you have already alluded to in your post, the first rule of thumb is to check the licensing of the image(Or other content).

Reading through some of the definitions of the different licenses is also very helpful. Doing so can make the whole process of finding 100% free and legal images and other content, a much simpler and stress free experience.

Hello! Anna. 🙂 I would like to thank you for this helpful post. I am starting to be in the “blogging industry” and also believe that images in my blog page can really enhance its appeal to the readers. Now, I also learned from your article that I cannot just pick any photo/image as they may be under copyright. 🙂 Kudos for a great article 😉

Wow, I never know you can filter out licenses when searching for Google Images. I wonder how we as a blogger dictate that licensing? (I always put watermarks of my blog’s URL on my images, just in case someone steals it)

As with the WP Smush It, I’ve stopped using it about a year ago. Seemed to have a problem with their system (causing freezes and null image when importing on WordPress)

Hello Ana, I must say this article is so nicely written that I really enjoyed reading it all till the end. I have sometimes used images from google but didnt know that filter to get images that are free to get and modify too, i actually never used the advanced filter but now I think i should be using it. Thanks for sharing so many valuable resources of getting images !

Hi Riz,
I also don’t use the advanced feature of Google image search, i just search for an image i like and use it! 😉
Why i dont use the advanced search is because it reduces the amount of images that shows up and it brings up images i dont like!

Hi Ana, another high quality post. Morguefile and Pixabay generally cover my needs. Sometimes Vecteezy has some useful stuff and occasionally the paid for sites offer a free image of the month which is often worth grabbing.
On the subject of image optimisation, there are three things you can do. Firstly save at the right size for the space the image will be shown. Secondly, compress jpgs as much as you can without losing too much quality (Pixlr has a slider control for this). Thirdly, Smush-it, as you mentioned. By doing all that you should be able to reduce the filesize of a copied image by 60 to 80%. I just wrote a post on this if you need more detail.

Keep up the great work Ana, yours is one of the few blogs I keep coming back to again and again.
Andrew

I usually use Snagit for my images, and whenever I resize images before uploading them to Traffic Generation Café, they get too blurry. Did you find it to be the case with other resizing tools, Andrew?

Hi Ana, thanks for the congrats – you cannot believe how excited I was managing to get my first ever guest post on one of the biggest blogs in the world – I can die happy now 🙂

I haven’t used Snagit, but I know what you mean about the blurs. They are, apparently called compression artefacts and are a result of taking out too much information and what’s lefet, kind of smudging together. With Pixlr you can control exactly how much or how little compression you are applying and see the resulting file-size on the readout.
I will download a copy of Snagit and have a look at the settings and get back to you if I can offer any advice.

I know people who have gotten in trouble recently for their free images.

I usually try to purchase most of my images. But sometimes I am not sure that is much better as we are not truly purchasing total rights to the image I do not believe.

You have a couple of free image sources that I have not used and I will look into them. I also was unaware that we could search images on Google and Bing by the license of the image. That is great to know.

I’ve never really used paid images in the past for that very reason: you have the permission to use the image (just like Creative Commons images), but that’s it. Permissions change all the time, sites come and go, so you never know.

What an awesome resource Ana. I usually use Flickr or Google Images to find the images I use (or I take my own pictures). I am using the right license as well. But, I’ve been thinking about finding a different way to find images, a way that’s faster.

On the question of copyright, I have about maybe two and a half thousand of my own images up on the net.

A while ago I did a ‘similar image’ search for one of my images and found eight pages of URLs that had used the image – some with attribution and some without.

If someone copies one of my images and does not give attribution, then of course, I don’t like it.

If I do get attribution, then I weigh up the benefit of the backlink – and maybe let it go. Life it too short to chase up all the images.

On the question of image use and copyright, why isn’t Pinterest in court? For that matter, why isn’t Google Image Search in court for copyright breach?

Isn’t it because they are not uploading images but referencing the images from their URLs?

In WordPress, there is even an ‘upload from URL’ feature.

Do you remember the storm over whether Pinterest was breaking copyright by publishing some unauthorised images?

That came to nothing – and I assume is was because Pinterest references the images from the URLs.

There was also a question about whether Pinterest was uploading thumbnails.

It was said to be doing that so that if the referenced image URL changed or the original image was removed, Pinterest at least had the thumbnail to show, rather than a lot of empty frames with a blue question mark or ‘this image or video is currently unavailable’.

As far as I know, that allegation about thumbnails being uploaded by Pinterest didn’t go anywhere and Pinterest is not in court.

I recognise that the problem with referencing an image rather that uploading it is that the original image might not always be around and that could mean a broken link.

And if an image is referenced then there is a link out to the URL – with the ‘bad neighbourhood’ risk that goes with that.

By the way, do you think Google must have their own broken-link checker on overdrive, checking that the images they are referencing are still there?

I heard recently of a marketer who is being chased by Getty Images for royalties owed for an image that he bought from another marketer and used somewhere. He assumed (wrongly in this case) that the images were copyright free.

You cannot be too careful when it comes to images. Before I knew any better I used to just copy images from the internet for various uses. Shocking I know.

I have rarely found free images to be as good as the ones you pay for although I have used some from Flickr creative commons. I will give the sites you mention a try.

I’ll certainly get the Smush it plugin as that is one of things I have been meaning to look into. Very timely, so thanks for that.

Found your post on Twitter via @kikolani. Thanks for sharing Ana! I didn’t know that Bing had an image search like that, but I’ll be sure to check it out. BTW, I have used http://www.morguefile.com for years and found them to be a reliable resource.

Another great post loaded with info and resources Ana. I did want to mention one thing about searching for Creative Commons images. I can’t remember who it was but a couple of years ago a blogger was being sued by one of the bigger image sites for using one of their member’s (photographer) photos without buying the rights to it. He found the image on Flickr that allowed the photo’s use with attribution, which he did. It turned out that it was never the person’s photo that put in on Flickr in the first place. They purchased a single use license and then uploaded it to Flickr. I guess my point is that it’s important to make sure we’re getting permission from the true owner, which I imagine can be pretty tough.

Great info Ana! It’s a shame that some people make such a stink over “their” pictures, but I guess I can understand to an extent. Thanks for sharing the above links. I got a few news ones now that I can use. I usually use FreeDigitalPhoto’s.net. 🙂

I was just on here a couple days ago looking for this exact information! You always have such neat images, and I need lots of new images to use for all sorts of books, posts, and other media – but I don’t have room in my budget for them.

This was one of the best-timed posts ever, from the time I needed the info to when I saw this. Amazing (uncanny.)

Thank you again! Another bookmarked post of yours that I’ll be using all the time . . . 🙂

I’d like to share an additional experience… I’ve a client who accepted a guest post from a famous author. She sent over a photo of herself and a copy of the book cover. It turns out the author didn’t have permission from the photographer to use the image (even though the image was of her, he still owned the rights to it).

Image ownership is tricky at its easiest. And a court case at its worst.